Listening to the Garbage track, I remembered Butch Vig was the drummer--Nirvana, I wondered if they'd done any stop-starts, but on a re-listen they did more soft-LOUD as the break.  Then I thought PJ Harvey (getting Butch Vig confused with Steve Albini!)....but I was thinking, hmmm, that Garbage sound...for me comes from the early nineties--ah, The Breeders!  Cannonball, from The Last Splash (1993).  This is the track I remember full of stops and starts.  In particular at 00:19, 00:25, (sort of another as everyone but the drummer stops at 00:37), 00:57....(whole song is 3:33)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RiJMZQXa2o

....thinking of Polly Harvey got me thinking to Patti Smith--did she use any important pauses?  I'm not sure, but this next is worth hearing because it has a memorable intro (start) (and because I like the song! ;) (3:10):

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0brHGJ6xqbk

Okay, a last piece, Polly Harvey, I'm going to suggest the first 11 seconds (on an embedding disabled version  it lasts 32 seconds) are a long pause--you can hear a crackle, so the track has started; when will the instruments or her voice enter the soundspace?  Great pause at 00:32 to introduce her voice, the song builds, up with the volume, then down (soft LOUD soft), then a build again, then a drop, and a sudden stop on the guitar at 3:02, bass stop at 3:08, voice stop at 3:24.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ZE6XK89YA

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

There are transitions on rock albums, too. A quite obvious one is from track 4 to track 5 on Midnight Oil's Diesel And Dust album: the end of Arctic World and the start of Warakurna. I found a concert version of the latter where they start with the end of Arctic World:

Midnight Oil: Warakurna Live in Sydney (04:51, the 'stolen end' of the other song is 00:12-00:28):

(For comparison, the studio versions: Arctic World [only album art still] Warakurna [only music!]; if only YouTube could play back-on-back.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Fade out is the right term.  Radiohead, "Fade...out...again...")

In the Beatles song (I hadn't heard it before), the voice fades out to a whisper (like you said, a lullaby), while the music has a definite last string chord...

That idea of the voice fading out ties (in my head!0 into the idea that as you drop from hynagogic into slow wave there's a point where the external inputs are shut off, an actual moment, but the conscious mind doesn't notice because its faded out from external inputs as the internal stimuli come louder.

And I've ordered the film to watch--I really enjoyed the images, the film got a panning from a critic and high praise from two viewers, so we'll see!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.